


Anafase

by rikke_leonhart



Series: Episode Reaction Fics [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 16:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9828536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikke_leonhart/pseuds/rikke_leonhart
Summary: Post-S02E07: There are different kinds of want and they are learning them together. A conversation that should have been had.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Eeeek, managed it before the new episode tomorrow - I genuinely don't know if I want them to have had sex or not, but in any case, there's a missing conversation. /shrugs. Fix it.

*  
They get as far as the doorway to the bedroom when Magnus pulls away with a harsh, panted exhale and pushes against his chest. His eyes are dark and his lips wet and glistening.  
  
Alec wants to kiss him again. So he does.  
  
He tries to, at least, because Magnus pushes against his chest again, his smile wry. He looks _amazing_.  
  
“Slow down,” Magnus says and Alec’s brain sort of short circuits at how raspy Magnus’ voice is, low and gravelly as if their kisses undo him as much as they do to Alec. “Slow.”  
  
Alec is on fire. His skin is flaring, it feels like someone has lit him up from the inside and it licks along his every nerve, tingling and burning everywhere that’s ever touched Magnus in any way. He just wants to be closer to him, closer, closer, closer, press against him and envelop him and be enveloped by him, be overwhelmed by him, be touched.  
  
Magnus’ eyes are so dark and so beautiful and Alec aches with want.  
  
“Why?” He rasps right back, oh god, his voice box is going haywire.  
  
“Slow down,” Magnus repeats but takes a step backwards and flings a hand in direction of the door when they’re both inside. The door closes with a snick. “We have time.”  
  
It doesn’t feel like it, not with the way all of him shivers with it.  
  
“Besides,” Magnus continues, his eyes glittering and his mouth curling further into a relaxed, honest smile. “I want to take my time with you. We have all night.”  
  
Thank _god_. Even if all night sounds slightly daunting and very optimistic.  
  
“There’s also the less sexy aspects we need to discuss,” Magnus says and just as he does, his hands encircle his wrists so when Alec feels his entire body tense on reflex, Magnus grins as if he was just validated. He moves closer and Alec can feel his breath so close but not close enough. “What do you want?”  
  
This. When thinking about it earlier, it’d been pretty straight forward. Sex. With Magnus.  
  
“What do you mean?” He asks, because it’s easy, isn’t it?  
  
Magnus smiles, kind and so, so gorgeous. “Sex is many things, Alexander. You have to tell me what you want, and not just because I want to hear you say it.”  
  
Alec feels a flush rise at his neck, he feels red and – slightly embarrassed. The want isn’t as pressing when Magnus is making him think, but hadn’t Izzy just been telling him not to overthink things? Now Magnus is telling him he does need to? “I trust you,” he says and wonders if Magnus knows how much that means.  
  
“First of all,” Magnus says as if Alec’s brain isn’t trying to combust, “there’s no such thing as blanket consent. So what do you want?”  
  
“You,” Alec replies before he can stop himself and he feels mortified, but then again, the look on Magnus’ face, equal parts awed and happy and slightly taken aback is gratifying. “I… hadn’t thought further than that.”  
  
“Look,” Magnus says, his voice falling into a reassuring cadence, “I’ll be listening to you, but I need you to very clearly tell me if there’s something you don’t like or don’t want or if anything makes you even vaguely uncomfortable. I _want_ to know. No one’s getting mad or annoyed or anything, but this is important, okay?”  
  
It’ll most likely make him die from mortification, but he understands Magnus’ reasoning, and given the fact that Alec doesn’t actually know the specifics of what he wants besides _Magnus_ , it’s a valid point. He nods.  
  
“Say it,” Magnus says, eyes dark.  
  
“Yeah,” Alec replies and something in Magnus’ eyes glitters. “Yeah, yes, I will.”  
  
Magnus’ hands slide up from his wrists to his elbows, leaving his arms as they go further and slip behind him to settle on his waist before very slowly inching up under his shirt at his back. The tips of his fingers feel like burning points on his skin. His breath hitches and Magnus’ presses in in response.  
  
“You too,” he says hoarsely. “You need to tell me, too. If there’s something – if _I_ do something you – ”  
  
“I promise,” Magnus says solemnly, but he’s amused, not in a condescending way but like Alec is the most precious, funny person he’s ever seen, and while, yes, Magnus is right, this is not very sexy, it’s also not as mortifying as he’d thought it could be and he doesn’t feel like Magnus is condescending or making fun of him.  
  
He’s just Magnus (as if there’s anything _just_ about him) and – Magnus feels vulnerable, too. He’d said that; so truthful that Alec feels breathless faced with Magnus’ raw honesty and his willingness to appear unguarded. He has a feeling that he’s one of the rare few that gets the opportunity and he very badly doesn’t want to mess it up, even knowing that he has a good chance of misstepping. It’s a learning curve that is sometimes a lot steeper than he had expected.  
  
Magnus’ hand flattens on the arch of his lower back and pushes at him, gentle but firm, until they’re so close there’s only a hair’s breadth between them, Magnus’ breath warm on his lips when Alec bends slightly to him. His body is so warm and so solid and Alec’s fingers _itches_.  
  
“So Alexander,” Magnus breathes into his lips. “What do you want?”  
  
Alec doesn’t know. Not precisely. He has vague ideas and a vivid imagination, but everything is new. “What do _you_ want?”  
  
Magnus kisses him. Deep and searching and Alec feels his toes curling in his shoes, feels Magnus’ fingers dig into the muscles of his back, and he opens his mouth to him, because he can’t not. There’s only Magnus and the warmth of his body, the slick heat of his mouth, the curve of his lips and the overwhelming want making all his nerve ends stand on end.  
  
“I want you,” Magnus breathes into his mouth, “and I want this. I want to be close to you.” He says this and pushes him backwards until the back of his knees hit something – Alec hadn’t even noticed them moving. He lets himself sit down and looks up at Magnus, who drops his arms in an easy loop around Alec’s neck. “I want to take my time with you,” he repeats. “I want to learn you and enjoy you and just _be_ with you.”  
  
His entire life he’s been comparing himself to Jace and allowed himself to fade into the background, but now, even fully clothed, he feels naked and very, very visible.  
  
“Sex is many things,” Magnus says again as he stands between Alec’s legs and Alec leans forward to rest is head on Magnus’s stomach. “I want the closeness and the intimacy, and… just _be_ with you.”  
  
He wants to say this to Magnus: I want that, too. All of it, everything, anything you want to give me and I’ll be greedy for it.  
  
This is what he says, muffled into Magnus’ shirt: “Can I take your shirt off?”  
  
Magnus breathes a laugh and his arms tighten around his neck; he feels a kiss dropped on his head, the gust of a breath on the edge of his ear and the shake of Magnus’ body as he chuckles.  
  
“Alexander,” Magnus says and he sounds so fond that Alec feels like the breath is punched right out of his lungs. “You need only ask.”  
  
Magnus obediently lifts his arms when Alec grabs the edge of his shirt and lifts, standing in the process and there’s so much skin, such a wide expanse, and for a moment he just stares before he _needs_ to touch. A steady beat beneath his palm, strong throughout centuries, a litheness, a solidness hidden beneath his clothes and his mouth waters.  
  
He kisses Magnus, folds his arms around him, encloses him and lets himself tip backward, dragging Magnus with him, and they knock their teeth on impact – Alec gets an elbow in his stomach, a yelp into his mouth, but Magnus is laughing, his eyes scrunched up, and Alec realizes quite suddenly, that this is the most honestly happy he’s ever seen Magnus.  
  
“You should laugh more,” he says and watches Magnus’ laugh turn into something softer.  
  
“Funny,” Magnus says right back into his mouth. “I think that about _you_ , quite often.”  
  
“I want that,” he says, his throat dry, and he means it much more than he thought he could. He wants – more than just the sex. It’s not a surprise to him, not entirely, even if the force behind it _is_ surprising. He knows what Magnus means when he says he wants the closeness and the togetherness. He really wants Magnus’ smile, and he wants to be the reason for it. Magnus’ smile is often guarded and rare in its sincerity, because for someone who walks through life looking so effortless, he carries many ghosts with him.  
  
Magnus looks startled, shocked into a moment of rare speechlessness. He swallows, his Adam’s apple moving, and Alec wants to bite at it, to lay his fingers on it, feel it move beneath the skin.  
  
“You really do continue to surprise me, Alexander Lightwood,” Magnus says, hoarsely, and his hands come up to hover just above Alec’s cheeks before he touches careful, wondering fingers to the soft skin beside his eyes.  
  
It feels like his heart is bursting full of fondness of Magnus’ wonder – it feels like his heart is breaking with how surprised Magnus sounds, as if he expected absolutely nothing because this, feeling this and feeling safe with Alec is _new_. It’s terrifying and it’s sad and above all, it makes him feel protective. Magnus is so capable of taking care of himself and maybe he’s so used to it that the idea that someone else would want to take care of him is foreign.  
  
Alec wants to protect him.  
  
Magnus’ weight settles more firmly on Alec and it’s nice in ways Alec hadn’t expected, but he finds that he likes it. There’s so much to explore and it’ll be wonderful if only he could get an idea of what to expect. “Tell me what you want.”  
  
Magnus breathes deeply and it’s a good feeling, the feeling of Magnus’ entire body breathing, his stomach moving against Alec’s in a breath. “I don’t know what I want, I don’t know if either of us are ready for everything I want,” Magnus says softly, “but I want it with you. At some point. Is that okay?”  
  
It’s an admission, Alec knows this. It feels like a confidence shared between them, somehow, a promise. Magnus fears losing him, as if he’s done this before, this tumble of feelings and bodies colliding and then lost the feeling he was chasing, and Alec doesn’t want to be that. Even if he doesn’t know exactly what he wants and how to ask for it, he knows what he doesn’t want. He doesn’t want to offer Magnus anything less than what he wants, he doesn’t want Magnus to want him any less than Alec wants _him_.  
  
He’s terrified of Magnus wanting him less.  
  
It must be written all over his face, because Magnus softens impossibly, his fingers so careful and so tender on his face. He leans down and kisses him.  
  
There’s so much kissing after that.  
  
His lips are swollen and Magnus puffs a laugh at him at some point, touching his lips and muttering something about beard burn and before Alec knows it, cool air hits his skin where Magnus has divested him of his shirt, Magnus’ clever fingers working his magic (and honestly, Alec doesn’t know if there was actual magic involved in him losing his shirt because he was distracted at the time), and he’s not even entirely naked yet but he feels it.  
  
But he also feels safe.  
  
Magnus envelops him, touches him with tender fingers, careful at first and then firm as if finding purchase and Alec shivers.  
  
He grips Magnus’ hands, twines their fingers and kisses him, surges up to meet him, laps at his mouth and swallows his breaths and bites at him, moans without meaning to when Magnus hisses. He rolls them over, presses Magnus into the sheets and he _wants_. Magnus is gorgeous, his gleaming skin makes his mouth water and his fingers twitch. Maybe it’s okay that neither of them know the preciseness of their wants, but they’re learning. Together.  
  
For all of Magnus’ experience, he says it’s all new to him.  
  
Maybe it’s time Alec lets it be. Loses control.  
  
Magnus wants the closeness and that’s enough. It’s more than enough. It’s all Alec wants.  
  
It feels good to be on the same page.  
  
“You’re smiling,” Magnus says quietly, their lips touching with every syllable.  
  
“Yeah,” Alec says as if it’s a surprise to him, but it’s not really, not with how often Magnus feels like the only good and grounding thing he has in his life. He wants Magnus present and focused on him and he has it. Whatever comes after this, it’s alright.  
  
Magnus’ smile is wondering and Alec is helpless to it. He smiles right back.  
  
*

 


End file.
